Monthly Archives: April 2015

I Walk Alone
Directed by Byron Haskin
Written by Charles Schnee from the play “Beggars Are Coming to Town” by Theodore Reeves
1948/USA
Hal Wallis Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Nick Palestro: For a buck, you’d double-cross your own mother.

Skinner: Why not? She’d do the same to me.[/box]

The sparks always fly when Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas meet up in a movie.

Frankie Madison (Lancaster) took the fall when a getaway went wrong and spent 14 years in the slammer.  When he gets out, he comes calling on partner Noll ‘Dink’ Turner (Douglas) who was supposed to have kept 50% of the proceeds of their nightclub for him.  Dink welcomes Frankie back and sets his girlfriend singer Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott) to soften him up and find out what he wants.  In the meantime, the all-business Dink is planning to marry an heiress.

It turns out Dink, with the help of Frankie’s friend Dave (Wendell Corey), an accountant, has fraudulently obtained Frankie’s signature on papers transferring the club to a very complicated series of holding companies.  Frankie attempts to round up the old gang to strong arm Dink into giving him his fair share but this proves futile.  Kay’s allegiance and love quickly shifts to Frankie when she learns of Dink’s marriage plans.  She proves to be his main ally against Dink and his muscle men.  With Mike Mazurki as the chief muscle man.

I felt like I had seen this story before and I have certainly seen Lizabeth Scott play the exact same part once too often.  Still, the film is enjoyable and competently made.  The highlight is Douglas, who is great as usual as a total heel.

Trailer

Fort Apache
Directed by John Ford
Written by Frank S. Nugent; suggested by the story “Massacre” by James Warner Bellah
1948/USA
Argosy Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Captain Yorke: Get to Fort Grant. Tell ’em where we are. Tell ’em we may still be alive if they hurry. Move![/box]

Such a classic Ford mixture of the heroic and the cynical in the Great American West.

After the Civil War, Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) has been shunted to a lonely outpost away from the front lines of the Indian Wars.  He is accompanied by his sweet daughter Philadelphia (Shirley Temple).  Thursday is determined that he will find some way to achieve military glory from his situation.  Arriving with him is young 2nd Lt. Michael O’Rourke (John Agar), fresh out of West Point, who is the son of the fort’s Sergeant Major Michael O’Rourke (Ward Bond).

Awaiting them is a ragtag band of soldiers headed by Captain Collingwood, who is awaiting a transfer and Captain Kirby Yorke (John Wayne).  A spirit of relaxed camaraderie prevails. Col. Thursday looks down on the men for their lack of military discipline.  He has arrived to shake things up and make a name for himself.  Philadelphia and the younger O’Rourke are immediately attracted but Thursday tries to put a stop to that relationship as well.

Soon after Thursday’s arrival, a few soldiers out on patrol are attacked by Indians.  Capt. Yorke, who has years of experience with the Apache and their ways, blames all the fort’s troubles with the local tribe on a government agent who trades in bad whiskey and rifles. Cochise has taken the bulk of his people across the border into Mexico to save them from the white man’s disease and corruption.  York assures Thursday that Cochise had nothing to do with the murder of the soldiers.

But Thursday sees this as his big moment.  He persuades York to negotiate with the Apaches.  This lures them over the border for peace talks.  No amount of reason can prevent Thursday from ordering his outnumbered regiment to attack the amassed Apache, to disastrous results.  With Victor McLaglen as a blustery drill sergeant, Pedro Armendáriz as a military interpreter, and Anna Lee as Collingwood’s wife.

This film, the first in Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy, is full of magnificent vistas and beautiful little moments.  One of my favorites is Fonda’s stiff-legged fancy footwork in a duty dance with the sergeant major’s wife at the non-commissioned officer’s ball.  The entire ball is just wonderful with its frontier formality.  Of course, the battle footage against the rocks of Monument Valley is masterfully done.

This film is thematically related to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) in that it concludes with the Wayne character, who had been betrayed and ignored, upholding the popular legend of Thursday’s Heroic Charge with newpapermen.  He makes a patriotic speech about how the fallen have not died as long as the glory of the regiment lives on. The entire story captures so well the forces tearing at Ford – his love of honor and tradition versus a clear-eyed vision of the human weakness that stands in the way of their fulfillment.  Recommended.

Trailer

The Big Clock
Directed by John Farrow
Written by Jonathan Latimar from the novel by Kenneth Fearing
1948/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] George Stroud: White clocks, yellow clocks, brown clocks, blue clocks. Oh, Miss York, where are the green clocks of yesteryear?[/box]

This fun and stylish thriller seems like it would be quite at home in the “Mad Men” era.

Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton) rules his magazine empire with an iron hand.  George Stroud (Ray Milland), the hot shot editor of his crime publication, hasn’t had a vacation since he joined the publication. His son is in grade school and he still hasn’t had a honeymoon with his long-suffering wife Georgette (Maureen O’Sullivan). That is supposedly about to change.  The family is packed and ready for an escape to West Virginia where they hail from.

It is not to be.  George gets buttonholed by a beautiful blonde, Pauline York (Rita Johnson), who says she has some inside information on the secretive Janoth and wants George to help her use it.  They go out bar hopping and snag a green clock and a painting by George’s favorite artist (Elsa Lanchester).  George gets so caught up in this intrigue that he fails to meet his wife in time for their train.  She is furious but George continues his night on the town then takes Pauline home.  He discovers she is Janoth’s mistress at the same time they hear Janoth knocking on the door.  George makes a speedy getaway and heads off for West Virginia.

Janoth and Pauline have a quarrel and he kills her with the green clock.  He plots with his right-hand man Steve Hagen (George McCready) to frame the murder on the man he glimpsed leaving the apartment as he arrived.  The only clues he has are the name Pauline gave him of another man and the green clock the couple picked up at the bar.

Although he had previously fired George for daring to go on vacation, Janoth demands that George return to work and hunt down the mystery man.  This is, of course, George himself.  George feels obligated to return so that Janoth will not frame the crime on the wholly uninvolved party Pauline made up to protect him.  Many complications ensue as George attempts to investigate the murder while simultaneously sending his many minions on wild goose chases.

This has an intriguing plot and some nice set pieces, mostly near the end inside the workings of the gigantic clock at the corporate headquarters.  Laughton is particularly nasty in his role.  Really entertaining though I wouldn’t call it film noir.

Trailer

The Naked City
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald
1948/USA
Hellinger Productions/Universal International Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[last lines] Narrator: There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.

This film was ground-breaking in several ways.  Seventy years of the same tropes appearing on prime-time TV makes it seem fairly average today.

After an opening offering a panorama of life in New York, the story focuses on the murder of a model.  We follow the Homicide Squad’s investigation in all its mundane detail.  Eventually, Lt. Det. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) begins to focus on Frank Niles (Howard Duff).  Niles says he did not know the model well but Muldoon catches him in a number of lies. The case breaks when the police discover that jewelry stolen from the model’s apartment had previously been stolen.  With Don Taylor as a rookie detective and Ted de Corsia as a thug.

This movie took the semi-documentary style pioneered at Twentieth Century Fox to new heights.  The entire story was filmed on location and, for me, the film was most interesting for its authentic mid-century setting and panoramic cinematography. Fitzgerald is by far the most natural of the actors, the rest of whom tend toward the wooden or histrionic.

The Naked City won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (William H. Daniels) and Best Film Editing.   Malvin Wald was nominated for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

Clip – Opening sequence – note unique oral credits

Women of the Night (Yoru no onnatachi)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Yoshikato Yoda based on a story by Ejirô Hisaita
1948/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Sign in an Osaka neighborhood: Women loitering after dark may be arrested for prostitution. Upstanding women should not stay out past dark.[/box]

I’m so glad I did not have to try to survive in one of the Axis countries after their defeat in World War II.  Mizoguchi is always worth watching if you can stand the misery.

Fusako Owada (the great Kinuye Tanaka) is living with her in-laws – her husband’s mother, brother, and teenage sister Kumiko.  No one in the household has work.  Fusako is tending to her toddler, who has tuberculosis, while waiting for her husband to return from the war.  She is getting by by selling her old clothes.  The used clothes woman suggests that she see a man who will pay her if she will give him a night he will never forget.  She refuses.

The family hears an announcement on the radio saying there is news of Fusako’s husband.  Fusako goes to her husband’s workplace only to be informed that he died in hospital.  The husband’s former boss offers her his help.  Then the baby dies.  Fusako goes to work as the boss’s secretary and they start an affair.

By chance, Fusako runs into her younger sister Natsuko who has returned from Korea and had no way to find Fusako after her house burned down.  She takes Natsuko to live with her in the apartment provided by the boss.  Natsuko has been working as a dance hall hostess.  Kumiko runs away and tries to join the sisters in the apartment but Fumiko tells her to go home.  Instead she continues to look for excitement until she is raped and beaten into becoming a prostitute.

One day the police raid the boss’s business.  Fusako takes a package of narcotics the firm has been smuggling to hide them in her apartment.  When she goes inside she catches her boss-lover in flagrante with Natsuko.  Fusako is so distraught that she disappears.  When next we see her, she is tough as nails and walking the streets.  She now has syphilis and has decided to get even with the entire male sex.  When the boss is finally arrested for drug smuggling, Natsuko finds she is syphilitic and pregnant.

I won’t belabor the rest of the plot.  Fusako tries to help both Natsuko and, eventually, Kumiko but things don’t get a heck of a lot better for any of the women.

Mizoguchi is noted as a feminist director but this is more of a moralistic tale.  At least the women don’t spend the length of the film weeping as is common in some lesser Japanese movies. The other prostitutes are extremely cruel and Fusako’s independence is won at such a terrible price that it is hard to believe the director supports it.  The acting is fantastic.

Unfaithfully Yours
Directed by Preston Sturges
Written by Preston Sturges
1948/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Alfred: Well, August, what happy updraft wafts you hither?[/box]

In this very funny film, Linda Darnell proves her gifts as a comedienne and Rex Harrison is practically perfect as a temperamental conductor.

Sir Arthur de Carter (Harrison) is a world-famous conductor and independently wealthy baronet.  He has a limitless passion for his music and his beautiful young wife Daphne (Darnell).  The couple is so much in love that their behavior in public is embarrassing to their friends and relatives.

De Carter returns from a solo trip to England to the loving arms of his wife.  He made an off-hand remark to his square multi-millionaire brother-in-law August (Rudy Vallee) to “keep an eye on her”.  August is nothing if not literal and employed a private detective to trail Daphne while he was off catching a few rays in Florida.  De Carter furiously tears up the detective’s report. But the pieces come back to him like a bad penny.  Finally, he angrily confronts the detective, planning to have all copies destroyed.  The detective lets slip that he observed Daphne leaving De Carter’s assistant’s bedroom late one night.

This news sends de Carter into such a frenzy that he can think of nothing but revenge.  He envisions three different scenarios as he furiously conducts some of his best performances ever.  The plots work out flawlessly in his mind, but reality doesn’t quite match up.  With Barbara Lawrence as Daphne’s sister, Lionel Stander as de Carter’s manager, and Edgar Kennedy as a music-loving detective.

Harrison proves to be as ready with physical comedy as he is with the bon mots.  Darnell is simply delicious.  There is a such a minx behind her adoring wife that one wonders if maybe there was a grain of truth behind deCarter’s suspicions.  Some of the slapstick goes on just a tad too long but there are many laughs to be found here.

This was one of Sturges’s last films.  Just as the movie was about to be released, Harrison’s then girlfriend actress Carole Landis committed suicide and the actor found her body.  The scandal caused the studio to hold back on publicity and the film did not do well at the box office.  It was remade in 1984 with Dudley Nichols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSSCLcFfbhs

Trailer

Road House
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Edward Chodorov; story by Margaret Gruen and Oscar Saul
1948/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Fox Film Noir DVD

[box] Susie: She does more without a voice than anybody I’ve ever heard![/box]

Ida Lupino’s gravelly rendition of “One for My Baby” is worth the price of admission to this otherwise average noir. Richard Widmark adds a little dash of crazy.

‘Jefty’ Robbins (Widmark) proudly brings his discovery Lily Stevens (Lupino) to headline as a lounge singer at his road house.  He enlists old friend and club manager Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde) to show her a good time.  Bad idea.  Anyway, Pete initially tries to bribe her to leave town.  Lily is a no-nonsense businesswoman and insists on the terms of her contract.  She sings and becomes a big draw with the public.  Jefty makes with the flowers and serving her breakfast in bed.

Jefty decides to go on a hunting trip to think things over and insists that Pete teach Lily how to bowl.  Later, it is Lily that serves Pete breakfast in bed.  She tags along on a swimming outing planned by club accountant Susie (Celeste Holm in the most thankless role ever played by a recent Oscar winner) and Pete.  When she puts on her sarong Pete melts.

Jefty returns from his trip with an engagement ring for Lily but by then Lily is already engaged to Pete.  Jefty gets revenge by framing Pete for robbing the till.  The revenge continues as Jefty arranges for Pete to be paroled under his none too subtle supervision.

This is pretty good but not outstanding.  The best parts are Ida Lupino’s singing (she does three numbers), the general atmosphere, and when Richard Widmark wigs out at the end in his hunting cabin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Q71t5D8ko

Clip -It’s all in the attitude …